Learn: Measuring KM/Knowledge Services

Save the date: Friday, June 11, 2010 - New Orleans, LA USA

The course: KMKS 08 Critical Success Factors: Measuring Knowledge Services

Learn techniques and tools for measuring success in knowledge services in this popular Click U course. You'll learn about the value of metrics in the KM/knowledge services process and have the opportunity to focus on organizational service comparisons for continuous improvement. Once you've had this course, you'll understand how you can use benchmarking, user evaluations, discussion tracking, and how to deal with intangible assets. This is your opportunity to show management just how good your work is (and how important KM/knowledge services is to your company).

KM/Knowledge Services experts Guy St. Clair and Dale Stanley facilitate the course, which is open to all knowledge workers (you do not have to be a participant in Click U's Certificate Program to attend).

All course participants who complete the course (whether for C.E. credit or not) receive a free copy of Critical Success Factors: Management Metrics, Return-on-Investment, and Effectiveness Measures for Knowledge Services, St. Clair and Stanley's report on how to evaluate KM/knowledge services. Prepared for SMR International clients, this SMR International Management Action Plan (SMR MAP) is sold through The SMR Knowledge Store. A $385.00 value, Critical Success Factors will be given free to participants in KMKS 08 Critical Success Factors: Measuring Knowledge Services.

Learn more and register here.

Up-Coming: PKM and the Mission-Specific Focus

What: Click U Course: Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) and the Mission-Specific Focus
When: August 10 - 27
Who: Guy St. Clair, Instructor, with Dale Stanley
Where: Online
Cost: $495.00 (SLA Members) $595.00 (Non-Members)
Register online at Click U - PKM
Learn more: Hear Dale Stanley and Guy St. Clair talk about the course and about PKM here. Or contact Guy St. Clair directly at smrknowledge@verizon.net

The course begins August 10, and includes three online lectures, on August 10, 17, and 24.

Also included is a facilitated live discussion (online) on Wednesday, August 19, with Guest Participant Libby Trudell, Senior Vice President, Market Development at Dialog, a ProQuest Company. Trudell is a recognized leader in KM/knowledge services, and just recently completed a term on SLA’s Board of Directors. She will join participants to discuss her experience and recommendations for PKM applications in the workplace.

The course concludes with a course wrap-up and thematic discussion (online) on Thursday, August 27. All programs begin at 3:00 PM EDT.

Note that membership in SLA is not required. Non-SLA colleagues are welcome.

IT or KM?

Two posts at other blogs have caught my attention, and since our goal here at SMR Int'l is to be provocative, let's see what they say about this whole idea of moving KM, knowledge services, and the support of the knowledge culture beyond the professional and academic and out into the workplace, as I've written about in earlier posts.

A colleague sends along Greg Lambert's fascinating piece Has "IT" Killed "KM"? and in his comment on another subject, Alex Feng puts forward very clear distinctions between the work of information professionals and that done by knowledge professionals (what I call "knowledge professionals," generally characterizing these knowledge workers as "knowledge thought leaders" for their employing organizations).

So the question seems to be one of both collaboration with other information- knowledge- and/or learning-related business functions and moving away from concepts and processes that inhibit the successful interaction of knowledge professionals with others in the workplace. If these colleagues require some sort of assistance, conversation, etc. as they seek to create and use knowledge, I'm not sure IT in and of itself can guarantee success. And indeed, if IT has in fact transitioned KM into nothing more than tools and those famous "pipelines," the battle might be lost.

But I'm not so sure. When I think about the people I know who are successfully performing KM - as a business function - in their organizations, I think the collaborative role kicks in, and it's those interactions with others that keep KM alive. Think about how we define knowledge services (the whole convergence idea, the convergence of information management, knowledge management, and strategic learning). Isn't that what keeps this work from becoming only an IT function?